Thursday, September 25, 2014

Now that I have a St. Birgitta's cap of my own, what shall I wear it with? This morning I happened to see a relevant post in the SCA Garb group on Facebook. So, right now I'm just parking the links that the comments to that post contained -- various tutorials on fitted kirtles.

I have no idea whether the "gothic fitted dress" would look good on me or not, but it might be interesting to try it sometime in the future. If it turns out to be not the most flattering thing, I don't have to make any more, and I can still wear the cap with other things -- apparently, it makes a great anchor for a veil.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

For the third year, the baronies of Storvik and Lochmere held an event called "Battle on the Bay." The tradition came about because the two baronies were holding their baronial birthdays one week apart, and the Kingdom officers were gently leaning on their branches to plan fewer but better events. (Storvik became a Barony of the
East Kingdom on September 15, 1979; back then, Atlantia was a Principality of the East. Lochmere became a Barony of Atlantia on August 20, 1988, but that anniversary falls just a little too close to Pennsic and the beginning of the public school year in Maryland.)

For the first Battle on the Bay, Storvik was the primary organizer of the event, with Lochmere helping. Last year, Lochmere was the primary organizer, even though it was a Storvik baronial investiture. This year, it was again Storvik's turn to host and Lochmere's turn to get new Baronage.

This year I decided not to camp overnight at Battle on the Bay
for two reasons. First, I wanted to get up to Baltimore and see the "Star-Spangled Spectacular" events surrounding the 200th anniversary of the "Star-Spangled Banner." Second, the chance of rain on
Saturday the 13th was 40 to 60 percent, and I didn't want to spend half
of Sunday wrestling with wet tent canvas in my crowded condo.

So I
got up on Saturday in reasonable time to get to the event. I'd been
told I might be needed to herald the last court of Their Outgoing
Excellencies of Lochmere, but at the last minute that barony's herald
was able to show up after all. Thus I announced Their Excellencies of
Storvik when they processed into court and watched the Lochmere
investiture ceremony from behind the thrones. It rained off and on
during the afternoon, but it was not windy, so we didn't have to worry
about tree limbs falling and tents collapsing.

Herveus and Megan,
who had their fiber-arts merchant business tent set up, were also
selling books that had belonged to Pedro and Devora. When she moved to
Iowa City this summer, Devora didn't want to take them with her, so they
had languished in her storage unit. I bought four books: three on
heraldry and one on medieval technology. Many of the books that Herveus
and Megan were selling last weekend were about medieval Spain and
Portugal and the Judaism that was practiced there; while those are
worthy topics, I simply don't have the space on my shelves to
accommodate them, and I have other interests within the SCA. I do hope
all those volumes find good homes.

Also during the afternoon, I entered a "Viking plunder" competition in which the winner would receive as a prize all the "booty" that was submitted. I dragged out my wire-weaving supplies and did a modest chain out of gold-toned craft wire. Not my best, but I hadn't picked up the wire in a couple of years (I think). I can't remember who ended up winning, but I hope he or she makes the chain into something.

The rain had stopped by the
time afternoon baronial court rolled around. Afterward, Their Excellencies of
Storvik invited me and Lady Tatsume to join them at high table, just
because they think everyone should be invited to do so at least once. So
that was extremely cool. No King -- he had left the site in
mid-afternoon -- just the two sets of B&Bs and their guests. I did a
little dancing after feast and before going home.

Friday, September 5, 2014

As I said in my previous post, last month I took a Pennsic University class on how to make a St. Birgitta's cap. Lady Sarai Tindall taught the class. I don't think she has a website of her own, but the method she taught was very similar to the one in this tutorial. The main difference was that Lady Sarai had us leave the ends unconnected to each other, so that we could tie them in a knot or bow. Also, we didn't do the optional embroidery between the two halves of the cap, and we had to "finger-press" the linen seams instead of ironing them (fortunately, in hot and humid weather, that isn't difficult to do).

You can go to the tutorial if you want step-by-step instructions. I would just like to post photos depicting some of the stages of my work.

First, here's how my cap looked toward the end of the two-hour Pennsic class:

I had hand-stitched the two halves of the cap together and finished the gathers at the back of the head, but that's about it. (Granted, a good part of the class was an introductory talk followed by distribution of materials, etc.)

The next time I bothered to take a photo of my work, I had pretty much finished sewing the ties to the front edge of the cap, down to the gathers. The ties came in three separate pieces, including a bit of extra handkerchief linen I had to buy after the class.

I finished the last little bit of stitching only after I got home from Pennsic. Here are a couple of photos of the finished cap on my head (pardon the mundane clothing on the rest of me):

I'm not sure about that bow. Maybe I should redo the strap/tie as a long closed loop that could be wrapped around my head. Hey, I should experiment with this -- what a concept!

I think I have enough of the handkerchief linen to make at least one more of these caps.I might try the same thing, or I might experiment with doing the embroidery down the middle seam, or other embellishments such as contrasting thread for the hand stitching. We shall see.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few other links related to the St. Birgitta's cap.